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Simple Macaroni

A simple macaroni dish cooked with milk, butter, egg, cayenne, and optional cheese.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Simple Macaroni

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Pour 1 quart of boiling water over ½ pound of macaroni.

  2. Cover the macaroni and let it stand for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the macaroni.

  4. Rinse the macaroni with cold water.

  5. Drain the macaroni again.

Cook and finish

  1. In a kettle, combine the macaroni with boiling milk and water.

  2. Cook until the macaroni is tender.

  3. Drain the macaroni.

  4. Season the macaroni with butter, cream, salt, white pepper, and cheese if desired.

  5. Serve the macaroni hot.

  6. Alternatively, boil ¼ pound of macaroni with ¼ teaspoon salt in 1 quart of boiling water for 20 minutes.

  7. Pour off the water.

  8. Add 1 cup of milk.

  9. Cover the macaroni.

  10. Stew until perfectly tender.

  11. Meanwhile, heat 1 cup of milk with ½ ounce of butter, ¼ teaspoon salt, and a small pinch of cayenne over boiling water.

  12. Add 1 beaten egg.

  13. Stir until thick like rich cream.

  14. Add mustard if desired.

  15. Pour this mixture over the macaroni.

  16. Serve immediately, optionally adding a light coating of grated cheese.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish and carries the sauce.
Egg
Thickens the warm milk mixture into a rich, creamy sauce as it sets.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the sauce.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce that the egg thickens.

The step that matters

Stir the egg into the hot milk until thick. The egg proteins set gently as they warm. If the milk is too hot or stirred poorly, the egg can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, thick cream.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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